Speakers at the symposium will include some of the best-known names on four continents in the fields of environmental law and of human rights. Keynoters include:

North America: Bill Rodgers, Stimson Bullitt Endowed Professor of Environmental Law at University of Washington, and Oliver Houck, Professor of Law and Director, Environmental Law Program, Tulane University Law School

South America: Antonio Benjamin, Justice, The High Court of Brazil

Europe: Dr. Marc Pallemaerts, Professor of Law, University of Amsterdam and research director at the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP)

Speakers also include a law school dean from Tanzania, a human rights researcher from Colombia, a legal expert on glaciers from Argentina, a law professor from Australia, law professors from California, Delaware, Massachusetts, Oregon and New York; and the head of a legal unit at the World Bank, among others.

The sponsors are the academic journals Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation and Oregon Review of International Law, with co-sponsorship by the University of Oregon's Climate Change Research Group.

Svitlana Kravchenko died in February of this year. "Professor Kravchenko accomplished more on the international stage than perhaps anyone in the School of Law's 128-year history," said Oregon Law Dean Michael Moffitt. "She enjoyed international acclaim for her scholarship and her advocacy, which improved our school, our state and our world."

Symposium organizer Michele Peterson said, "She was best known for inspiring generations of students, scholars and lawyers to make the connections between human rights and the environment. She enjoyed learning about creative jurisprudence in one part of the world, or at the international level, and promoted efforts to bring it to the attention of a wider audience in another part of the world."

Oregon Law Professor John Bonine, Kravchenko's spouse, added, "Svitlana would have loved having all these great speakers in one place to discuss human rights and the environment. She also took new thinking out of the classroom and into actual practice, whether in her workwith the United Nations or her leadership of her law firm in Ukraine. She loved the law but even more, she loved those around her, from students to family."